<p>it just feels like such a waste....giving up my entire childhood, and working my ass off in high school...joining clubs, garnering leadership positions, volunteering in china over the summer, getting interviewed on tv, winning national piano awards, doing speech and debate, doing journalism, doing an additional internship, coordinating the donation drive at school each year for 3 years, etc. etc.</p>
<p>I'm going to berkeley next year, and i'm disappointed. EXTREMELY.</p>
<p>Dont get me wrong - i know that cal is a GREAT school.
But, watching almost EVERYONE from my school get into berkeley makes it seem much less special...people who put in 1/4 the work amount that i did, ppl who totally slacked off and bs-ed their way through, going to the SAME college that i'm going to...can anyone relate? </p>
<p>It's making me dislike berkeley more and more and hating on myself for being too stupid to get into any ivies.</p>
<p>Listen. Keep in mind that some of the most successful people in history have come from smalltown colleges, most notably Ronald Reagan, Jay Leno, Steve Jobs, probably tons of others. Oh, btw, Berkeley is probably top 20 in the nation.</p>
<p>Just remember that, in continuing your studies, you will do better than the classmates that’ll be following you to Berkeley. Know that you will land a better job or get into a better grad school. Don’t beat on yourself.</p>
<p>there are probably people who put in the same effort than you and got rejected from berkeley…our valedictorian 2 years ago went to berkeley and it’s a really good school… It won’t matter that you did not go to an IVY in 20 years.</p>
<p>The lesson here is - do your best, wherever you go.
BECAUSE You can still get into a great Grad. School.</p>
<p>My guess is that either your SAT scores weren’t high enough for Ivy, or that your essay made you sound arrogant or boring.</p>
<p>They have to imagine you on their campuses. If your essay was a cookie-cutter essay, it doesn’t matter what your did during High School.
Be lucky you’re at Berkeley - that’s an awesome school.</p>
<p>I don’t want to be mean but you probably didn’t get accepted with that prevailing attitude of “I’m doing it to get to Ivy and reputation”.</p>
<p>There’s this one person I knew who was on my Cross Country team and she actually got a full ride to Harvard… and she rejected it for some small Christian school. You know why? Well she didn’t do anything that she done for Ivy. Nope, she herded camels and helped the unfortunate in Africa as a missionary for years and was at the top 10 of the class simply because she was unpretentiously sincere. Think about it. I mean just by hearing what I said, you can tell she’s not motivated like some rich snob. Just putting it out there.</p>
<p>lmao this is interesting cuz i think this will be one of ur perks. you should consider lucky to reunite w/ ur classmates there @ berkeley no?
and congrats to ur acceptance @ berkeley cuz berkeley is such a tough school to be admitted to. i just dont see why u are lamenting… or cursing over ur classmates. maybe they worked hard while u didnt see them working. no offence.</p>
<p>^That’s what my counselor said to me when even Cornell didn’t want me.</p>
<p>It was my dream from childhood to go to Princeton, but I was flat out rejected. Life goes on. You know that the entire college admissions process is a crap shoot, and we all do. So people are not going to judge you or anything that you are going to Berkeley, aka one of the best schools in the nation, all right?</p>
<p>I have committed to UChicago and am falling rapidly in love with it. Get yourself excited about Berkeley too! You’d be in UCB for at least the next year, so don’t spoil this time for yourself.</p>
<p>And keep in mind, whereever you go, you will be THRILLED anyways! Cuz yes, college itself is that exciting~</p>
<p>I notice you didn’t include any of your objective academic stats. You may have created an impressive EC resume but it doesn’t matter without competitive academic stats.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, you are going to one of the best public schools in the country, and if you are as amazing as you believe yourself to be, you should excel at Cal.</p>
<p>Why are you complaining about going to Berkley?!?! If I had the money to travel over there and pay for the college I would of applied there. I bet your friends where only accepted for money and the school they where going to or something if they where really that crappy students. Its not a big deal, just forget about it and move on. You could always try again in 1 or 2 years. Sometimes colleges want to see more than Extra curricular activities. They may want to really see your reason for applying to their college besides wanting to go there just becuase its an ivy.</p>
<p>^ Indeed. When CCers say that ECs are really important for differentiating oneself, they are assuming that the applicant has solid objective stats.</p>
<p>I had a 4.65 UW, 6 APs - all 5s, SAT - 2250(maybe this was too low).</p>
<p>FOr all those ppl who thought i was doing all those things just for the resume, sorry for coming like that :(. I joined speech and debate/journalism because i enjoyed those activities - I just also thought that my hard work would actually mean something when senior year came…</p>